Is loading on to my phone as we speak I type this. I think this update will probably be the best so far...Lots of enhancements this time around

Cut, copy, and paste Finally
Landscape keyboard in major Apps
Better search capabilities
Shake to shuffle in iPod
Calendar improvements
Stereo Bluetooth support - Something I might eventually use.
Syncing notes - A biggie for me. Since I have CRS.
Voice memos will now become a native application - Another CRS improvement.

But wait there’s MORE! But these are the ones I give a crap about on this go round.

Just hope it doesn’t turn my phone into an electronic BRICK!

Semagic is Love

I had forgotten just how much I like Semagic. If you don't know, Semagic is a full featured posting client for LJ. Beats the hell out of any client for Macs in my opinion. But hey I like the client I use for my mac too. It just isn't as robust as Semagic is all.

Cruised into my office today to check on my windows install. We're upgrading in phases to Windoze Vista. And it is my turn. So to have as little down time as possible I set it to run the upgrade when I left work yesterday.

So because I have no life *grins* I went downtown to check on it and maybe get a jump start on any problems that might arise. I mean come on, it is Vista installed over a network connection, how could there be any issues??

A Case For Cloud Computing

Knew I was going to have to do some re-installs of software, and tweak the outlook settings. I do NOT like the new Outlook by the way...It looks to be seriously over engineered. At any rate I took my mac with me and a book. And a magazine. And my iPod. And a set of headphones. Installing software is the most boring thing there is. And The Offspring and BF had asked me to review or critique a new blog they are starting for one of their endeavors. I had given it a once over in the morning and had already made some notes and was gong to make some more while taking care of my Vista issues at the office.

And there were and are, some issues. A lot of re-installs and a few Outlook issues as well. And I didn't get to a lot of them. For one I don't have Administrator access to modify certain directories...DUH! Help desk call on Monday. And how the hell do I install my PST's in Outlook? And boy is that screen set up frickin' ooooogly.

So I was about some SW installs, got my mac out of the bag and turned it on. Got the ever comforting *booooong* start up tone. So I stepped away to go down the hall and get a cuppa...And make a pit stop. Got back to the Cube of Wonderfulness only to find a blank screen on the mac. WTF!? Shut down and rebooted several times...It started but no display. Even slipped over to and empty cube and swiped a spare *heh* flat panel and hooked it up. Nothing. I can hear the drive spinning but no display.

Turn to my desktop and pull up the Apple website to set an appointment at the genius bar of a local Apple Store for about and hour and a half in the future. Pack the damned thing back in the bag and turn to the tasks at hand. Set an alarm to get me out of Cube City in plenty of time.

But here's the dealio with the cloud computing piece of this...The docs I needed for my critique of aforementioned website were (and still are, presumably) on my mac of course. Now if I had saved them to the intarwebs in google docs or some such other platform in the cloud, I could have gotten through a lot of it. As such I'll now have to recreate the documentation I had already done...Bleh...

So without that stuff available to me I actually got a little further a long with the work stuff. But I may still have to spend half a day getting the rest of it together.

Then my alarm went off...

Ding, dong the mac is dead! The wicked mac is dead!

*sob*

What will become of me now?

I'm down but not out. Not yet anyway. I'll have to drag my old PC tower in from the garage. See if there in any life left in the old boy. Knew I kept the old coot around for a reason.

I hope I still remember how to XP. Ha!

I love technology.

Back soon.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

This might be the silliest dang post I've ever seen on TUAW:

31 fart apps in 90 seconds.

Looks like the years I spent in Spencer's finally paid off, as I was given the dubious honor of sniffing out a few dozen of the 60+ fart apps on the store. But I promise, no squeaking out a lame joke just because this is a video about farts. No silently doling out the goods while looking the other way, either -- I'll just squeeze my mind cheeks together and hold it all in. I even avoided using the "1812 Overture" as theme music. For maximum effect I highly recommend blasting this video loudly at work.❞

Read the rest of the TUAW post...




I know, I know. Must be a guy thing. Jesus, some of these developers need to get a life. And some of the related vids on Youtube are hilarious too.

Back in Bidness...

Apparently my soft reset wasn't soft enough or long enough. I had spent most of the afternoon with my laptop tethered to the Internet (cable modem). I had unplugged the Extreme and was letting it languish there without power for several hours.

When I plugged it back in - Airport Utility wasted no time in finding it and diagnosing the Internet was broken...Another quick reboot of the (cable) modem and SPROING! TexasT's is back online!

Saved me some money, that did.

Now...about that Ethernet switch...

My frickin Airport Extreme may have croaked...

Done all the usual stuff...Reset the modem. Soft reset on the router. Reboot (both hot and cold) the mac.

Airport utility doesn't even SEE it as of yet. Meh.

Getting ready to do a Hard reset. If this doesn't do it, reckon I'm off to get a new router...

Crap!

I love technology! But only until it screws me over! Hah!

Currently hardwired into the damned cable modem. That reminds me...I need to look into an ether port switch of some kind. The extreme has three Ethernet connections but wiring my mac and 360 into it is not really practical as the damned thing is in another room! So I need to look for some kind of inexpensive switch.

I think I remember this. Not because I was there. But because I remember thinking:

"This is gonna change everything!"

After Apple began letting some slightly less tasteful but more humorous apps into the App Store, we figured we'd see a few fart button apps, but we didn't expect one to reach the #1 app sales slot. That's exactly what iFart Mobile from InfoMedia did, and you'll be surprised what the developer is raking in from it.

They posted sales numbers in a previous post, showing how sales for the app have increased as the app's ranking gets higher:

12/14 - 841 units - #76 overall
12/15 - 1510 units - #39 overall
12/16 - 1797 units - #22 overall
12/17 - 2836 units - #15 overall
12/18 - 3086 units - #10 overall
12/19 - 3117 units - #9 overall
12/20 - 5497 units, - #4 overall

Now, in the #1 position, they posted that their sales for the app leading up to the #1 position and the day they hit the top:

12/21 - 9760 units
12/22 - 13274 units, #1 overall

That means that in one day, the #1 app in the App Store raked in $9,198 after Apple's 30% cut. As amazing as it is to think that a fart app made over $9,000 in a day, the information also shows just how heavily an app's ranking in the store effects their sales. It should also be useful information for developers who want to know how much the #1 spot makes in a day.

Lastly, this also falls in line with a point made by Craig Hockenberry about how an app's quality and price factor into it's popularity in the App Store.

via iPhonealley.com

HISSY FIT!

I bought Photoshop Elements 6 for the mac the other day and installed it. Hadn't had much of a chance to goof with it. But I went out and bought a few expen$ive books about the various features it has.

Why are technology books so damned expen$ive?

For those that don't know Photoshop Elements is basically a stripped down version of some of the better features of Photoshop. Mostly for editing of, you guessed it PHOTGRAPHS.

Still can be a complicated program to deal with, hence the books. One is a very basic (one of the) Missing Manuals series put out by O'Reilly Publishing. These are pretty good. Got one for the iPhone and the Web site is what put me on to the one for PSE6. The other two are for more...advanced topics.

Some nice podcasts out there about PSE as well!.

Also bought a Cory Doctrow book I have been meaning to pick up. But here I go getting scattered.

Anyway I fire up PSE6 and crack the Missing Manual and it starts talking about some of the pallets that are available and what you can do. But the pallets on my copy of PSE are empty. Nada. Nothing. I couldn't figure it out and none of the books had anything to say about that except maybe doing a repair or unistall and re-install. And as long as the damned program to to install, I was casting about for a solution.

I was starting to get a little hot under the collar and went to see if there was anything on the adobe site. This did NOT help my deportment. Have you ever tried to manuever around that damned site? About as helpful as a broken leg!

So I tried a repair. It took nearly as long as the install did and was NO EFFING HELP. Still no content in the pallets. It is basically a reinstall over your present one. I was really hot by this time.

So onto an unistall. Which seemed to take several hours...But didn't really. And thence to a clean install. Now why in the world the install program makes you close any browsers you have open I have no idea. Just another thing to PISS ME OFF!?!?

No web surfing during a sw install. Whatever would I do with myself?

And it took almost an hour for the install to do it's thing.

It's a MIRACLE! Everything is as it should be. Holy Crap!

On to the manuals now...

'Nuff said, true believers! I got me some learnin' to do!

See ya!

PS: Thought I was gonna have to write another blues tune...HAHAHAHAHAHA!

First things first: I have been just taking it easy today. So far anyway. Probably not gonna change too much. Haven't even changed out of my jammies yet. TMI? Any ways.

Dang! I need a longer USB cable for my portable drive where my iTunes files live. I forget about the durned thing, so when I go to set the thing on the coffee table the drive ends up dangling. And then on the floor. Disconnected of course. iTunes doesn't tend to like that. Heh!

Joined last.fm last night. Started with it this morning. Downloaded the desktop app. As yet I find the interface on the web and in the application a little confusing. Connected the LJ to it. (See music palying below.

Got the free iPhone App loaded up this morning. Now that is kinda cool. Pretty straight forward interface on the phone. ets you listen to your scrobbled tunes and you can also listen to recommended selections from last FM.

The LastFM App will be a definite iPhone battery killer for me.

Speaking of iPhone Apps:

There are a couple of cool ones I picked up over the last few days. 
One called Simplify which in conjunction with the desktop client from Simplify Media allows you to stream via WiFi or 3G or edge the music you have in iTunes to your iPhone or iPod Touch! Very cool. As long as the desktop app (and iTunes) is running you can stream music to your iPhone over the Internet.

I tried this out the other day. I was at the Alamo DraftHouse the other night. It was a little clunky getting connected. But once it did? NICE.

Another is the mobile version of flickr. It allows you to upload photos from the camera. Look at your and other folk's photos. Lots of flickr functionality built in there. A keeper.

Also picked up Yahoo!OneConnect. This lets you connect to YM and various other social networks. Seems to work okay. But like other iPhone apps it doesn't run in the background so if you aren't actively in the App or you navigate away from it, it disconnects. So until Apple let's developers run stuff in the background it may not be worth even the price: FREE. Have to see if there is another piece of SW for this.

A couple others that I picked up thanks toeats_veggies are pretty cool too. One is a kind of white noise generator called ambiance. It generates a sound field of various types for when you would like a little of your own company. Things like pink noise to a thunderstorm loop are included. My only complaint about this is that on some of the tracks you can hear were the loop ends and restarts itself. Nice interface though. And you can't bitch about the price $0.99.

As a side I also downloaded another similar app (same price) called asleep. A lot of the same type sounds, but with longer loops. Lot's longer. The interface is not as well thought out as Ambiance though. But easily navigable.

The other one I looked for and downloaded because of Dory, is called Koi Pond. Also $0.99. It is what it sounds like. A Koi pond. You can change various settings. Pond color, Rocks, Plants, 3 diferent ambient noises, day or night, and the number of fish.

When you poke the pond it makes splashy sounds, and ripple fan out across the surface.

And get this...The fish react to your motions. Way cool and a definite calm inducing timewaster.

One last point about Koi Pond. The sound is soooooo fine. When you drag your finger across the screen from left to right, not only to you create a wake in the pond, but the sound follows through your headphones from left to right, right to left, whatever. So neat!

Thankseats_veggies ! I'll show it to you next Saturday!

Well, I'm off to either take a shower or take a nap.

Or maybe I'll just go play in the Koi Pond!
*grin*